


A History of Touch

by Anna Marie Darkholme (WierdAlienFantasies)



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/F, Mutual Pining, Physical Contact, Unresolved Sexual Tension, mutual comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 19:10:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17452730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WierdAlienFantasies/pseuds/Anna%20Marie%20Darkholme
Summary: Growing up Gamora was always tactile. She would give out a thousand small touches to those around her each and every day. Thanos’s punishments quickly taught her to hide them in his presence, and most of her siblings reacted with either violent anger or scorn until she cut off contact with them as well. Nebula alone tolerated the physical contact with a seemingly quiet indifference.





	A History of Touch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [magnetgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnetgirl/gifts).



> I hope you had a great Birthday and will have a wonderful New Year!

Growing up Gamora was always tactile. She would give out a thousand small touches to those around her each and every day. Thanos’s punishments quickly taught her to hide them in his presence, and most of her siblings reacted with either violent anger or scorn until she cut off contact with them as well. Nebula alone tolerated the physical contact with a seemingly quiet indifference. Gamora latched onto this, using contact with her sister to ground herself. Whenever she felt as though she were losing herself to Thanos’s training, she would steal another touch from Nebula just to remind herself what it felt like to feel. She wanted to thank her sister in some way, but the words always died on her tongue. She only hoped the gestures spoke for themselves.

Despite her outward indifference Nebula craved the contact as much as Gamora did. It was the only time she experienced physical contact that was not linked to pain. She would grasp onto the memory of each moment of contact, no matter how fleeting or light. Whenever Thanos dragged her off for her latest enhancement, she would replay those memories to drown out the horrors around her. She could never quite bring herself to tell Gamora how she felt, her pride preventing her from revealing such a weakness. She only hoped her sister understood what she herself could not.

Over time the contact between sisters grew into something beyond simple touches. It evolved into a language of sorts, communicated through the heat of one another’s bodies and the rhythm of their heartbeats. Every gesture Gamora made, from the briefest nudge of shoulders to gently tracing the latest scar to decorate Nebula’s body, became charged with meaning. Gamora always initiated the contact but sometimes Nebula would seek her out and, though she never spoke a word and rarely even looked Gamora in the eye, she’d know exactly which touch her sister craved.

As the sisters teetered on the edge between childhood and womanhood, a new energy crackled under each touch. The touches themselves remained the same even as their meanings became warped. A wave of emotion neither dared name would sometimes overcome them. Gamora would withdraw her hand whenever she felt it, whilst Nebula would flinch away. Whenever that happened the one who had broken contact would leave, refusing to meet the eyes of the other as they watched them go.

When Gamora slept her dreams were plagued by images of new touches she wanted ( _needed_ ) to explore with Nebula. Some nights they played out in her dream and she’d awaken spent. Other nights she would be disturbed by a sound or assault and so awaken with an unbearable sense of longing, the overwhelming feeling of being incomplete. Thanks to Thanos’s surgeries Nebula no longer slept, let alone dreamt. However some nights, when she pretended she could, the very same touches plagued her mind.

After Thanos’s failed attempt to obtain the power stone everything Gamora and Nebula had built together fell apart. The vastness of space and a wall built of misdirected resentment and misunderstandings prevented them from touching. Gamora found herself with a new grouo of people, all of whom she could touch. She appreciated the way each Guardian accommodated her gestures, from Drax’s quiet stoicism and Rocket’s feigned annoyance to Peter’s goofy smiles and goofier quips and Groot’s open delight. Yet none of them understood. None of them spoke her language, not the way Nebula once had. She sometimes found herself tracing an imaginary body of steel and flesh with familiar touches when she had a moment to herself.

Even as Nebula tried to chase her own freedom she was haunted by the past. She had expected the dull ache from old wounds and surgeries to remind her of Thanos. She had not expected the ghostly touches, the echoes of memories she had tried to forget, to remind her of Gamora. Even if you stay silent you cannot forget how to talk; even though Nebula was now alone she could not forget the language she had once spoken as easily as breathing. Sometimes as she sped through vastness of space between targets in spite of everything she found herself closing her eyes and chasing down those memories to relive them

Down within the caves in Ego everything finally came to a head. The scent of blood and burning hung in the air alongside Nebula’s confession as Gamora sat just a foot away from her sister. Brown eyes met dark black, each searching desperately for something. Without looking away Gamora moved in closer and placed a hand on Nebula’s shoulder. Something shifted in Nebula’s gaze, something Gamora had never allowed herself to see before. Slowly Nebula lifted her own arm until she was resting her hand on top of Gamora’s. The contact sent a spark of electricity across Gamora’s skin.

For a moment that could have stretched to eternity or outpaced a heartbeat, both women stayed frozen in place. Then everything changed. As Nebula’s cybernetic hand traced the line of her jaw and she mirrored the gesture across the patchwork of panels and flesh on Nebula’s own cheek, Gamora’s last coherent thought was how this new language, at once painfully familiar and jarringly alien to the one they’d once shared, was what she’d been searching for since the first touch.


End file.
